July 27, 2017

The Constitution Project: France

by John Lawrence

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

From operationworld.org

France's Constitution goes back to the French Revolution of 1789 when France guillotined the King and became a Republic. Article 4 states: "Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law." The current Constitution was adopted in 1958.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), passed by France's National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, is an important document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil rights. The Declaration was directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, working with General Lafayette, who introduced it. Influenced also by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included in the beginning of the constitutions of both the Fourth French Republic (1946) and Fifth Republic (1958) and is still current. Inspired by the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a major impact on the development of freedom and democracy in Europe and worldwide.

The French President is elected directly by a vote of the people much like the US. The French Parliament consists of two Houses: the National Assembly and the Senate. In all elections where there is a single official to be elected for a given area, including the two major national elections (the election of the President of the Republic and the election of the members of the National Assembly), two-round runoff voting is used. For elections to the European Parliament and some local elections, proportional representation voting is used. The Senate is not elected directly by the people but indirectly by elected representatives. It also includes some representatives of French citizens abroad.

The French Use a Two-Round Voting System Also Known as Run-Off Voting

The French vote for the National Assembly in single member districts or constituencies compose of roughly 100,000 voters each. One member is elected from each constituency. However, unlike in the US, the single member constituency has not led to a two party system. Multiple parties are represented in the French Parliament. The French system is known as a two round system.

To be elected in the first round of voting, a candidate must obtain at least 50% of the votes cast, with a turn-out of at least 25% of the registered voters on the electoral rolls. If no candidate is elected in the first round, those who poll in excess of 12.5% of the registered voters in the first-round vote are entered in the second round of voting. If no candidates meet these conditions, the two highest-placing candidates advance to the second round. In the second round, the candidate who receives the most votes is elected. The two round system is probably what makes multiple parties viable since the voters know they will get a second chance at voting so they can vote for their favorite on the first round.

The French Constitution is historically important because it goes back to the Enlightenment philosophes who also influenced the American Constitution. While American elections, in which one candidate is elected from single member districts, tend to eliminate third parties, France has a vibrant multi-party system although the two largest parties tend to dominate. In the American system a vote for a third party is seen as a wasted vote or a vote which splits a constituency giving the election to the smaller constituency.

Duverger's law holds that plurality-rule elections (such as the Amerrican system) structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system and that "the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to favor multipartism". This tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a "law" or principle.

Duverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system: a proportional representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller political parties, resulting in what is known as a two-party system.

However, most countries with plurality voting have more than two parties. While the United States is very much a two-party system, the United Kingdom, Canada and India have consistently had multiparty parliaments.

Comments

The Constitution Project: France

by John Lawrence

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

From operationworld.org

France's Constitution goes back to the French Revolution of 1789 when France guillotined the King and became a Republic. Article 4 states: "Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law." The current Constitution was adopted in 1958.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), passed by France's National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, is an important document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil rights. The Declaration was directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, working with General Lafayette, who introduced it. Influenced also by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included in the beginning of the constitutions of both the Fourth French Republic (1946) and Fifth Republic (1958) and is still current. Inspired by the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a major impact on the development of freedom and democracy in Europe and worldwide.

The French President is elected directly by a vote of the people much like the US. The French Parliament consists of two Houses: the National Assembly and the Senate. In all elections where there is a single official to be elected for a given area, including the two major national elections (the election of the President of the Republic and the election of the members of the National Assembly), two-round runoff voting is used. For elections to the European Parliament and some local elections, proportional representation voting is used. The Senate is not elected directly by the people but indirectly by elected representatives. It also includes some representatives of French citizens abroad.